DONE

It feels great to be done shooting. Yesterday Jeff and I completed a couple simple scenes, plus a some random pick-up's. Those are the best, but the most time consuming. You set-up for twenty or so minutes, you shoot it once or twice and blamo, you're done.

Why the shooting of the film last longer than expected was mostly due to us unable to shoot in a gas station. You're probably sick of me talking about this gas station extravaganza, but it's the real reason. 21 or so gas stations were looked at, Holiday and BPs to smaller locally owned ones to stations that were a few miles up north or down south; I spent an afternoon many weeks back scouring around trying to find this place. Nothing. For the most part the employees were kind and thought it would be great, but upper management had issues. Issues that were never actually brought to my attention, and I've never been able to pin-point the exact problem.

Because this scene wasn't going to be shot, Wednesday afternoon I wrote out a new scene that would fill in that void. I sort of wrote it. I supplied the idea of what the scene was going to be, but Jeff came up with the core. It's different than what the gas station scene was going to be, but it will work and we even hit on a couple "plot-points" in the film with this new scene. There are times while developing a character when you discuss subtext and the reason a character will behave a certain way. I love this stuff, because it gives life to a character's motivation, but most of the time when these things aren't verbalized or even suggested in the subtlest of ways, the subtext becomes entirely lost to a point where the audience member just doesn't understand it. So, we touched on one or two subjects that are on the back burner through-out the film, but not too much. Whether this new scene will work as a whole when the entire film is cut together, has yet to be determined, but as an individual scene in the privacy of Paul's car, there's certainly an undeniable amount of realism. I think it's great.

That's another topic of discussion through-out the making of this film: who's to say what is or isn't realistic when two characters are talking in private, or who's to say what is or isn't said out-loud when a character is alone? This is tough, and hopefully we did it right. I think we did.

___________________

I've been working at my real-world job a lot in the last three weeks. It's been nice. I haven't worked this much since July. I've been such a financial bind since August (because of the movie), that Jenn's been having to help me a bit more. I'm thankful she's been able to. I owe her a nice big check, which she'll get on Monday. I also need to thank Corey and Dave for working whenever I needed to do my movie stuff. Right now, as I edit my film and get it ready for festivals and as I'll be able to help more with making Wedding decisions for mine and Jenn's Wedding in September, I've been getting more stressed and sleeping less. Not because of the Wedding or really my movie, but because of my future employment at the theatre. With Digital Cinema going in sometime in the next few months, there may not be jobs for traditional 35mm projectionists -- so what do I do? I have no idea. I've been apart of Willow since I was 5 or 6 years old, and have been employed at the theatre for 10 years on January 2nd, 2012. Where do I go from here? I'm worried, but I'm almost optimistic about what comes next.

I'm going to get back to editing. I'm about to cut a pretty fun scene together. Super fun!

Editing, Poster and What's Left

Editing is going real smooth. I haven't been doing it as frequently as I should, but compared to the progress on my first film, I'm so much further along. The conditions were different the first time around, so that has a lot to do with it. As of this moment the NICOTINE is 48 minutes and 20 seconds. We're only on Scene 25. Originally there were 100 Scenes, but slowly as the shooting went on, we took things out, condensed some stuff, etc. I'm not sure how many total scenes there are in the film, but I think it's around 75 or 80.  During the shooting we expanded on already scripted scenes; it was the plan too, so they were expected additions.

The biggest challenge of editing is to find a balance between too little and too much. Personally, I like bloated scenes, so luckily I have John to give me feedback. As much as I trust my instincts, opinions and thoughts are greatly appreciated while shaping this film. John gave me some great ideas the other night on the phone. Unfortunately, sometimes there's not additional footage to cut here or cut there. The problem with shooting for a specific editing style, is that you limit yourself for what you can do once you get to the actual editing. There are a couple scenes where the camera is locked and doesn't cut into mediums or close-ups, it's just a two-shot of characters talking, so you just hope and pray that it will work with the film. In retrospect was it a good choice? Does it even make sense to suddenly hold back that way? Did I just break the rhythm by changing the style up? All questions will eventually be answered... unlike in LOST. J/K, Best Television Show Ever.

Poster #3

Poster #1 and #2 weren't really anything, but this third one is a bit more serious. I want to go with a minimal poster. It's hard to name some of my favorite posters, but an original idea I had for NICOTINE was basically the Criterion cover for The Vanishing. I love it. It's simple and ominous and even boring -- in a good way. But if I came up with something like that, it would be selling it as too much of a brooding drama.

I don't know what the "final" poster will be. The above poster I made with the bowling floor is a relatively small file, the image quality isn't great, so I wouldn't be able to blow that up. I might stick with something like that.

What's left? The Gas Station scene, a simple re-shoot of Paul walking inside the apartment lobby and a Paul phone voice-over. I've come up with something to replace the Gas Station scene, mostly because that whole point of the scene was to get to the last couple of lines + to see more of Paul's awkward interaction with people in the outside world. I talked with Jeff about what this scene would be, and we both agree that the gas station scene would be great, but I'm tired of people not really knowing and being nervous about us doing this. Of course I won't say what the scene is, but it will be a good addition to the story.


What's next? Finish editing, music, then doing a couple private screenings with the actors, then a [hopeful] big screening [in January?], then we'll enter this thing into some festivals.

It's all going well. I'm happy with this movie. Very happy.

12%

That number represents how much we have left to shoot. It's been a long process. Just the other day I mentioned to Jeff that we started this back in April. It was in April that I wrote out the craigslist ad looking for actors; didn't think it would work. John convinced me it's worth a shot. We were originally going to start shooting in July, then it was pushed back to the end of August. I also didn't think we'd be going to the middle of October. But, that's what happens when you try to make a movie.

What have I learned? A lot. I don't want to be the cinematographer anymore, or really operate the camera. It's an odd thing to confess. As much as I'm in love with shooting my own stuff and I have the "style" in mind, it certainly takes my focus away from the actors. That's the most important aspect of the whole production, yet my attention hasn't been 100% on them. It's awful to admit that, but it's true. I do my best. I'd like a constant crew,  yet with the insanity that is this shooting schedule, it's hard to do. We all have jobs in the real world, and as sudden as this schedule can be, it's difficult to get people together last minute. Sometimes I like when it's just me doing it all -- camera, lighting, sound, etc -- even though it's more chaotic, it feels much more intimate and personal. That's not saying I don't like crew, I do, and Jenn and Mike and Shaun have been very helpful with several parts of this production. I'm thankful that they've been able to help me.

We are shooting tomorrow night and then Friday and that's it. Shooting will be complete. There are smaller things I need to pick-up; close-ups on certain objects, wide shots of empty rooms, but we're almost done. We won't be getting the music together until November. Rudy is busy will all sorts of things, including slowly writing music for this film. So from Mid-October to Mid-November, I will be editing. As of right now I've cut together 40 minutes of the film.

Lastly, this is a "poster" I put together this afternoon.

It's not a final poster by any means, but I'm trying to figure out what it will look like. Poster designing is tough; too cliched or too indie won't work with me, yet doing something too abstract might evoke an unusual or strange perception. I need to find a balance that's not overly serious or too vague. I'm not using faces or people from the film on the poster. It's not a for sure rule, but anything I could make with the actors on it would be no good. Honestly, many of the posters made by "filmmakers" my age are horrendous piles of poop. Bad photo-shopped images of characters posing in front of false background or even directors that have their name of the poster five times. Yes, we know you did everything in your film, but just because Robert Rodriguez has his name in the credits fourteen times, doesn't mean you should too.

I don't know what the poster will be, but we'll work on that later.

That's it from the hatch for now.

Lost and Found

The past few days are difficult to sum up. I haven't had any "free-time" up until today. Even today was busy, prepping the apartment for a nearly twelve hour shoot on Friday. Since this film began a mess has sort of accumulated everywhere. If we're shooting in the office, we'll move things to the living room, and so on and so on. But literally every single room, except the bathrooms, will be used on Friday, which means I needed to haul ass and figure this all out. It would just be easier if everything was already always clean, but that would certainly be too easy.

Why the title? Well, I lost an SD. Oh don't worry, it was found...just two days after it was lost. It took a third time looking for it to actually locate it. I tore apart my car, the apartment, checked the location I thought it may have been left at -- being right outside the Golden Valley City Hall. Nothing. I was going nuts. I was told I was behaving fairly calm for having lost a $25 card with 30 minutes of fresh footage on it. It's the type of thing where you can curse and scream and yell and get upset, or you just go re-shoot it. It's horrible, but it needs to be done, so don't whine about it. Luckily after a shoot last nigh at Rudy's house in Richfield I decided to go back and search for it. I sat at the bench we shot at, turned the flashlight on, pointed the beam at a tree and there it was. It was found. After two days, it was unharmed, not dirty nor wet, but in pristine condition.

I did edit a six and a half minute sequence today.

I've taken over the living entertainment center since Jenn went to Hawaii. Having two monitors is quite handy. Everything opens up and the canvas is whole lot larger. This sequence is something that I feel will get criticized a lot by some people; I guess this whole section of the film. I think people will say there's no focus, this stuff isn't about anything, it's just a long section of nothing related to what the "plot" is about. But that's exactly what I want for this entire movie. That's part of the whole purpose of this story. I'm please with how this has turned out. It's grainy and some stuff is soft-focus, the audio isn't always clean, but that's what I wanted. I always felt this project would be special (not to sound incredibly corny), and I've been feeling it since the first few days of photography, but cutting together this section and seeing it all flow from beginning to end, I can say I'm happy. Very happy.

I hope I learned a lot from my first feature -- at least from an editing standpoint, well, from every point of view. My first feature was choppy with the editing. Unintentionally too. I had eight or nine separate timelines going, and at the end I merged them together.  That was part of the problem, but also because I don't think I understood what the structure of the film was, I think. I didn't know what the rhythm was supposed to be. I know it was a slow build, but there was absolutely no momentum or conflict in the eyes of the audience. There were a lot of little things, and one major thing, but I touched on those topcis so lightly, that when bigger "suspenseful" moments were supposed to take place, the audience didn't understand why it was supposed to be that way. There was, however, one moment I remember where I felt the audience holding their breath -- a slow zoom onto a door handle. That was awesome.

Back to this project. I'm planning for a major night shoot Saturday. I don't want to say what it is, just in case you're casually reading this blog and want to see the final product when it's complete. There's a lot of planning. It's making me crazy, but it's been blocked all out. It's been mapped out. Everything is ready to go. I hope nothing goes wrong that night. We need to stick to a timeline for this shoot. The same goes for every shoot.

I wanted this film complete by the end of September. That didn't happen. I'm about to re-write a scene that was added in late, but I was never happy with. I'm condensing it down and making it make sense.

Some locations are/were being difficult. We still don't have a Pre-School or a Phone-booth or a Gas Station. I found out yesterday morning that the gas station near my house already decided that they weren't going to let me shoot there, but did they contact me? No. I'm having very little luck with gas stations willing to help me out. It's very disappointing.

I will get back to editing for a bit, then off to bed. Here's a picture from a shoot yesterday. I was a one-man show that day. It sucks a lot, but I'm used to doing everything by myself.

Lobby in my apartment. 

Oh, another thing. My fiance is in Hawaii and took a LOST tour. She sent me this picture. JUGHEAD. Awesome.